How New Is the New Testament?

A wonderful volume appeared late this year, and it’s one you’ll want to put on your Christmas list: How New Is the New Testament?: First-Century Judaism and the Emergence of Christianity, by Donald Hagner (Baker Academic).

The mature reflections of a seasoned and dedicated NT scholar, Hagner’s How New Is the New Testament? offers a straightforward assessment of the current climate of NT studies with reference to its Jewish roots. Hagner traces the historical see-saw between continuity and discontinuity throughout church history and offers compelling evidence that the pendulum has swung too far toward continuity in recent decades. He takes the reader on a fast-paced tour, from Matthew through Revelation, on what is really new in the NT. The author virtually unties the Gordian knot between the New Perspective on Paul and the old perspective, though he comes down, in all essentials, on the side of the old perspective. Hagner weaves a rich and complex tapestry of OT promise and NT fulfillment, the backside of which tapestry has been occupying exegetes for too long. The panoramic view of the NT presented here, written by a first-class Neutestamentler, is beautiful in its simplicity and compelling in its cumulative argument.